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Transplant man gets ‘jazz hands’

As the first recipient of a double hand transplant, Bob Fisher waved frantically at the journalists and photographers assembled at yesterday’s press reception. He praised the surgeon, the hospital staff, and the donors who had made the groundbreaking, eight-hour operation possible, before trying to strangle himself.

‘One hand came from a mime artist who, tragically, failed to escape from an imaginary box’, said Bob, as he attempted to walk into a strong wind. ‘The other hand came from a semaphore signaller in the Royal Engineers, who was half-way through a message asking the enemy to stop firing when he was felled by a sniper’s bullet’.

Bob’s over-active hands have prompted depression, though the way he keeps waving them around like a chorus girl from a musical comedy, has made everyone presume he is now incredibly upbeat. He had been hoping to resume work as a roofer; failing that he thought he might apply for a job as a tic-tac man at a race-course. What he wanted most of all was ‘a quiet life’, he said, as he left the building and hailed two cabs.